North America is following in Europe’s footsteps. The Canadian and US governments on Tuesday February 28 banned their employees from installing the short video application TikTok on their devices. Washington is giving all of its federal agencies 30 days to remove the app from any mobile device, while Ottawa has urged its employees to act immediately.

Protecting the safety of the American people

“These directives are part of the government’s continued commitment to securing our digital infrastructure and protecting the security and privacy of the American people.”, said Reuters US Federal Information Security Commissioner Chris DeRusha. North American governments are concerned that Chinese giant ByteDance, owner of TikTok, is using the app to collect its citizens’ data.

The US announcement follows a vote in Congress last December that gave all jurisdictions 60 days to organize the app’s removal from work devices. Such a ban was already in place in the White House, as well as in the Defense, Interior and State Departments and in more than half of the states. America joins the European Commission and Council in asking their employees on February 23 to ban TikTok from their work devices and from their personal devices when using apps. The European Parliament is also expected to vote on it shortly.

espionage risks

These series bans follow the revelations of the last few months. TikTok itself admitted last November following an investigation by forbesto access the data of its users. “We are working to limit the number of employees with access to our European users’ data, as well as the flow of data outside of Europe, and are focusing our efforts on keeping those users’ data in Europe.” Elaine Fox, European Privacy Officer for TikTok, wrote at the time that everything was done in accordance with European regulations on personal data.

Audio recordings from the American site Buzzfeed had also shown that social network engineers had access since Chinato US user data, between September 2021 and January 2022.

Towards a total ban in the United States?

In addition to tensions with China, Westerners’ concern stems from the fact that ByteDance, owner of TikTok, is a member of the Chinese Federation of Internet Companies. However, every company that is part of it is committed to it “to have complete confidence in the socialist way, theories, system and culture” as well as “Acceptance of advice, support and guidance” competent authorities, including those responsible for the Internet, the“Chinese Cyberspace Administration”.

As a result, Americans could not stop there: the Foreign Affairs Committee UNITED STATES has to vote this Tuesday on a series of texts related to China, one of which concerns the protections enjoyed by foreign content creators in the face of American sanctions. If passed, it would give President Joe Biden the power to ban the app from the country altogether. Such a ban had already been considered by Donald Trump at the time. TikTok is used by more than a billion people worldwide, including more than 100 million in the United States alone and 15 million in France.